Life is like
by aliasaurorasaccounthasmoved
Summary: Life is like..." In drabbles of no more than 500 and no less than 200 words, the characters of FMA personify life in a variety of different ways.
1. Life is like: Metal

**Title: Life is like...**

**Character: Winry Rockbell**

**Word count: 203**

**AN: This is the shortest of all the drabbles I have written for this fic thus far, which is why I'm posting it first (if that makes sense to anyone. ^^') Kind of like a teaser, I suppose? Please review if you like it. Reviews make me type (and think) faster.  


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Mechanic that I am, I spend a lot of time working with metal.

Life is like metal.

Sometimes, metal is my best friend, my comfort. It's my profession.

Metal won't fail you when you need it. It's strong, it's solid, it's constant.

Metal will adapt for you. Mold it into what you need most. For example, a right arm and a left leg.

At the same time, metal can be fickle and untrustworthy.

The same metal leg that can help a cripple to walk can be the sword that crippled him in the first place.

The same metal bars that hold an inmate in prison can be the bullets that the convict shot to land him in there in the first place.

Life is much the same. It's random and unpredictable and not always on my side. When things go my way, they go perfectly, like my very best craftsmanship, which I can't show you right now because there's an alchemist somewhere out there who's got it and won't be coming back until he's either broken it or eliminated its necessity. However, when things don't go my way, nothing goes right, like a piece that cools too quickly and shatters and I have to start over.

Life is like metal... my fair-weather friend.


	2. Life is like: A Volley of Fire

**Title: Life is like...**

**Character: Riza Hawkeye**

**Word count: 322**

**AN: I had a reviewer suggest I post Riza's next, so here's hers. Really these were written in no particular order, so you don't need to worry about that!  


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**As a marksman, is it cliché of me to liken life to a volley of fire? Perhaps so, but I couldn't care less.

The fact is, that's how I feel and that's all there is to it, no more, no less.

I haven't gone a day without a gun on my person since... Oh, I don't know. At least a decade, I'm sure. Unarmed, I'm Elizabeth. A woman; a blonde no less; not too strong, not too tough, with a mouth bigger than my muscles, at least _I _think so. (Perhaps I'm too harsh on myself. I'm not a loudmouth by any means; leave that to Mustang and Edward and the other idiots in my life.)

Armed, on the other hand, I am Lieutenant Hawkeye. Grown men, soldiers, tremble under my glare, because they know I'm the biggest threat in the room. Is it any shock that I spend my every waking minute with a holster at my hip? Not to me.

My life is dangerous, to be sure, but tolerable: because every volley of gunfire I exchange with an enemy puts the one I have sworn to protect that much closer to his goal—I make sure of it. Therefore, the volleys of fire are an excellent metaphor for the strong, hopeful parts of life; the good part by anyone's definition.

On the other hand, Edward Elric wasn't wrong when he called the gun I gave him "a machine for killing." For every shot I aim at my enemy, one comes back to me, so while the good part of living is personified by the concept of guns as machines for survival, the fearful and dangerous side of life can be explained by the equally correct concept of guns as machines for killing.

Life is a double-edged sword, or, more fittingly, a volley of fire.


	3. Life is like: Chemistry

**Title: Life is like...**

**Character: Edward Elric**

**Word count: 428**

**AN: This was the one I had originally written to go second. In the original ordering, the metaphors get a little more complex as the fic progresses, and the order was Winry-Edward-Alphonse-Riza, but then I came up with one for Roy, and of course _that_ idiot screws up the lineup, so now they're in no order whatsoever. And I'm now toying with the idea of repeating characters. Anyway, please review!  
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Alchemy and chemistry are so closely related that they're practically inextricable. As an alchemist, I spend a lot of time contemplating chemistry, and I've come to the conclusion that life is a lot like chemistry.

Life tries to make you think it's exact, like the laws of chemistry, which only seem to hold up until somebody new comes along and points out their predecessor's mistakes.

Some people go through life with a plan, like a combustion reaction: always the same reactions, always the same products, always the same results.

You don't need any brains to understand a simple combustion reaction. A hydrocarbon plus oxygen from the air yields carbon dioxide and water, and all you've got to do is balance it. However, life doesn't really ever work out like these types of people want it. Whoever heard of a combustion reaction occurring exactly as it does in the theories? Wood (or any kind of fuel for that matter) isn't made up of perfect hydrocarbons like that, and the oxygen in the air isn't pure oxygen, either. In much the same way, it's unrealistic to lead a textbook life like that. What kind of life would that be? Political correctness, skirts that never go higher than the knee, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Safe. Bland. Boring. Impossible. Idiotic.

Most people bumble through life hoping for the best, like a chemist mixing two unknown substances, then putting on a hard hat and ducking for cover, fingers crossed. They trust in God, fate, luck, fill in the blank with your choice of abstract idea, they're all the same. Unreal, nonexistent, but then we humans have never really needed _proof,_ have we?

Me, I'm choice number three. None of the above.

I don't follow the rules or live by the book. Fuck the rules, to hell with the system, screw PB&J. I'm the man who wouldn't accept even death as final enough.

On the other hand, I'm not reckless, either. I'm not the duck-and-cover type when it comes to danger. It's rare you find a personality like mine (in the good way), and most of the time, the personalities you find are like mine (in the bad way).

I'm "Other; fill in the blank."

That's why while everyone else became an accountant... or a lawyer... or the owner of a flower shop... I became the alchemist: because nobody else understands the balance of chemistry quite the way I do.


	4. Life is like: A Suit of Armor

**Title: Life is like...**

**Character: Alphonse Elric**

**Word count: 426**

**AN: Don't know when I'll get around to writing any more of these. (I'll take suggestions!) There's one I've got planned for Roy, likening wife to the science of taking a woman out on a date (Not that I actually believe he's actually that shallow; I am aware that his promiscuity is essentially a cover, however since it makes up such a good chunk of his life I figure it's worth writing about. Comparing life to fire or some variation thereof would be too cliche.)**

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I've had a lot of time to think about this, and I've come to a conclusion: Life is like my armor. It's neither good nor bad. It's a source of shame and hope, parallel but intertwined, so that I could not imagine life without this armor, just as I view life in general.

Now, don't get me wrong: One doesn't wake up one day and decide to maim oneself by becoming trapped as a soul in a suit of armor.

However, I can't help not regretting that day. Is that sick of me? I don't know. What I do know is that transmuting Mom was the best and worst thing that ever happened to me. Worst for the obvious reasons. Best for the sense of fulfillment I get from it. How can one feel fulfilled while trapped in a suit of armor? It stems from the sense of relief I carry. If Ed and I hadn't failed to bring her back, if we hadn't made the biggest mistake of our lives, I would have always wondered and feared that there was a way to bring her back and I had been too afraid to try it. The doubt would have haunted me forever. As it is, I am haunted by my memories, but abstractly soothed by them as well.

The human transmutation is, as I said, the best and worst thing that ever happened to me.

His armor, this sick metal body that can't feel and can't cry, is a constant reminder of what I have lost and what I have gained in return. For this reason, isn't a suit of armor the perfect metaphor for life? It's filled with good and bad aspects, to the point where they're inextricable from each other. Suicide is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, because you can't have joy without despair, nor health without sickness, nor relief without guilt.

My body is the symbol of my biggest shame, the worst thing that ever happened to me. However, my body is also what motivates me, and Brother as well, and so despite the horror of losing everything in the human transmutation, from our physical bodies to our intangible hope of seeing Mom again, I wouldn't change it for anything. Maybe that's what people mean when they speak of destiny. I don't know; I'm not a wise man by any counts, but I seems to me that I wouldn't be the same person if I wasn't in this armor, and that's not really such a bad thing.


End file.
